Sam's Private Pumpkins
by Mizufae
Summary: Freddie finds out something Sam has been keeping secret at school. Set during iHave My Principals, written for the 5 4 3 2 "Hidden Things" challenge. Sam & Freddie friendship, Seddie if you squint.


It happened during the week that Briggs and Howard were promoted to co-principals. I found out Sam's secret.

There had been a brief, nearly wordless discussion between Carly and myself about Sam's willing attendance to Ridgeway High during the Week of the Dress Code. Carly had been prepared, it seems, to drag Sam bodily onto school grounds and glue a blue shirt and khaki pants onto her, so Sam would have to suffer along with the rest of us. Well, according to Carly it would have been to allow Sam to keep up her minimal passing grades and attendance records, but I knew better. Sam and Carly had an agreement that involved Sam always looking bad and Carly always looking good, but neither of them were ever into absolutes nearly as much as they pretended to be.

So when Sam had tumbled into the dour hallway wearing Carly's borrowed pants and extra blue button-down, we were both startled, and Carly was relieved. I had expected Sam to either show up in one of her mom's crocheted bikinis and try to get suspended for the week, or not show up at all.

"What're you looking at, Fredling?" she said to my uncomprehending stare, and then stalked off, presumably to class.

Wednesday was the day it happened. Three days into the horrible regime and I was beginning to come to terms with it. It wasn't so bad, constant surveillance and propaganda-plastered walls notwithstanding. I still had the AV club, I still had a permanent, laminated hall pass, I still managed to find the time to ogle cheerleaders with Gibby on Tuesdays. I pushed an ancient TV cart with a heavy CRT balanced on top into the small hallway leading past the science classrooms, into the wing of Ridgeway reserved for creative electives. Room 127 turned out to be Home Ec. Sweet, warm, buttery smells wafted out of the door as I knocked it open.

"Ah, our film is here!" announced the teacher as I ducked my head in. "Come in, push it to the front here, young man." She paused to taste a bowl of something and then turned to the class at large, "everybody, eyes to the front! We have a delightful treat for you all. A documentary on grain!"

As I squeaked the AV cart past the augmented science lab tables, I almost tripped over a dropped wooden spoon when I saw a very familiar butt waving in the air in front of an oven. Without even glancing at the tape, I slid the no-doubt circa 1973 third generation copy straight into the VCR, setting it to play from muscle memory alone, my eyes glued to that khaki-clad behind across the room. As soon as the tinny music of the opening started to play, I rushed over to the oven.

When she straightened up and turned around, I was rendered speechless, all clever remarks dead on the tip of my tongue in the wake of shock. Sam was wearing a peach-colored frilly apron, and big purple oven mitts. In her hands was a fresh from the oven pumpkin pie, its fragrant steam rising in little wisps, nutmeg and cinnamon and buttery crust swirling around the air in front of her. Her eyes fell on me and her face changed from delight and pride to angry distrust in a blink. She carefully placed the pie on top of the stove to cool, nestled between two other visually perfect pies, and turned to face me again. "Why are you here?" she demanded.

"I'm on AV duty Wednesdays. Why are you here?!"

She sighed loudly and shut the oven door with a jut of her hip. "I couldn't get into Shop again, they said I was a liability within twenty yards of a table saw."

Something was amiss. Sam looked behind me with a worried purse of her lips. The wavering voice of her teacher came from over my shoulder. "Oh Sam, do you know this student?"

"Yeah. Freddie, meet Mrs. Bay. Bay, meet Freddie, king of the pushcart."

Before I could respond, my hand was being shook by a tall, gray-haired woman. "Sam here makes the most amazing pies. I'm sure you know already, she's one of my best students. I told her, really, you don't have to perfect the recipe, just be confident about it, but no! She's got such dedication, don't you agree?" Mrs. Bay stopped shaking my hand to lean over and smell Sam's most recent pie. "Oh yes, the addition of maple really brings out that nuttiness in the scent." Then without warning, she was off again, down the line of cooking stations to put out a very small grease fire.

"Uh…"

"Yeah, Bay's kind of like if Spencer had a mom." Sam definitely wasn't going to explain anything to me.

"So you bake pies now?" I tried for the direct route.

"Quiet, I'm trying to learn about grain harvesting practices from fifty years ago."

Deflected, there was only one thing left. I found what looked to be a clean fork on the counter, and dove for a bite of the pie to the right. Sam saw at the last second, right as I shoved the orange mess into my mouth, and lunged forward to grab the fork from my hand a moment too late.

My eyes glazed over with stars. Or they might as well have, I honestly don't remember the next few seconds. My mind was bursting with sensory delight. The crust was chewy, buttery, flaky, the pie was wreathing my tongue with scent and perfectly smooth texture, the pumpkin ideally spiced. Forget Gallini's, forget my mom's attempts at baking, forget everything I'd ever known about pie. This was the perfect bite of pie, the highest level of excellence a pie could take on, the ultimate of pies, the first and only pumpkin pie from which all others are descended and diminished, the ur-pie.

"Ungh." Evidently I made that noise involuntarily.

"Tell anybody that I'm doing this and you'll die without tasting the improved recipe." There was an egg beater at my throat, but the threat was the softest I'd heard from Sam in a while.

Eventually I managed to get out "Where did you learn to make a pie like that?" while drifting my finger over the pie for another taste.

My hand was slapped. "No-where. I just like doing it. And then I get to eat pies in the end."

My blissful pie-induced haze shook off. "Wait, you're putting up with the dress code and Franklin being gone and everything, just so you can get a good grade in Home Ec?"

Sam groaned. "If I give you the rest of that pie, will you shut up and leave me alone?"

I didn't need to think twice about it. I took the pie and ran. Sean could come pick up the AV cart tomorrow morning.

By the time I got to my locker I couldn't take it any more. Silently thanking my mother for packing individually-wrapped silverware into my lunch that day, I hunched down against the wall with a fork and started eating the pie in earnest. I don't know how long I spent, single-mindedly shoveling my way through the glorious orange filling. It could have been a couple minutes, it could have been a week, but I was half way through the pie when I heard through the overhead speakers. "Fredward Benson, report to the principal's office for unauthorized gluttony in the hallways!"

Something had to be done about this. On my way to the office I pulled out my phone and texted Carly. "meeting at groovysmoothie, gotta take briggs & howard down". Not being able to eat a pie in peace? That's no way for a man to live.

After we reinstated Franklin, it occurred to me that a celebratory pie was in order. But when I asked Sam about one, she slapped her hand over my mouth. "I have no idea what you're talking about." Her face was vicious. Maybe she didn't want to share with me, or maybe she didn't want to admit to working hard at something, but I still know. Sam stays in school and bakes pies for A+ grades. When she took her hand away from my face and turned to go to class, I could smell the cinnamon in her wake.


End file.
